When it comes to investing, knowing what you need to know is more important than just knowing things.
說到投資，知道自己需要什么比了解投資產(chǎn)品更重要。

?

You Don't Need to Have an Opinion on Every Stock or Investment
你不需要懂每一只股票或投資產(chǎn)品

One of the things that successful investors tend to have in common is that they do not have an opinion on every stock in the Universe.
成功的投資者共有的一個(gè)特點(diǎn)就是他們并不懂全球所有股票。

The major brokerage firms, asset management groups, and commercial banks seem to feel like it is necessary to attach a rating to everything security that is traded.
大型經(jīng)紀(jì)公司、資產(chǎn)管理集團(tuán)和商業(yè)銀行好像都感覺有必要對(duì)所有安全交易進(jìn)行評(píng)級(jí)。

Some popular financial talk show hosts take pride in espousing their view on virtually every business that’s traded.
有些著名的財(cái)經(jīng)訪談節(jié)目主持人對(duì)能評(píng)價(jià)所有的交易業(yè)務(wù)引以為傲。

While this can be useful when looking at corporate bonds and discovering whether they trade more toward the AAA rating or junk bond side of the spectrum, in a lot of cases, this obsession with metrics is somewhat nonsensical.
雖然這在觀察企業(yè)債券并弄清是把錢投在了AAA級(jí)投資產(chǎn)品還是投在了垃圾債券時(shí)很有用，但在很多情況下，對(duì)指標(biāo)的迷信有點(diǎn)荒謬。

Investing is not an exact science. Paraphrasing two of the industries’ priests, you don't need to know a man's exact weight to know that he is fat, nor do you need to know a basketball player's exact height to know he is very tall.
投資并非精密科學(xué)。借用兩位行業(yè)專家的話，你不需要知道一個(gè)人的具體體重就能知道他很胖，你也不需要知道一個(gè)籃球球員的具體身高就能知道他很高。

If you focus on only acting in those few instances where you have a clear winner and watch for opportunities that come along every once in a while, sometimes years apart, you are likely to do better than the Wall Street analysts that stay up nights trying to decide if Union Pacific is worth $50 or $52.
如果你只關(guān)注幾種投資產(chǎn)品，確定自己穩(wěn)賺，并找準(zhǔn)偶爾出現(xiàn)的機(jī)會(huì)，有時(shí)是多年不遇的時(shí)機(jī)，你就能比華爾街分析師做得還要好，他們可能還要熬幾宿來確定美國(guó)聯(lián)合太平洋鐵路公司的股票值$50還是$52。

Instead, you wait till the stock is trading at $28 then pounce. When you find a truly excellent business, you are often best served through near total passivity and holding until death.
你就可以等著直到該股票以$28交易時(shí)就下手，你發(fā)現(xiàn)真正好的商機(jī)時(shí)，通常是在幾乎完全被動(dòng)的情況下一輩子持有這只股票就能大賺一筆。

This approach has minted a lot of secret millionaires, including janitors earning near minimum wage and sitting atop $8,000,000 fortunes.
這個(gè)方法造就了大批神秘百萬富翁，包括門衛(wèi)都能賺著最低工資，卻坐擁8百萬美元的資產(chǎn)。

Why do investors find it so hard to admit that they don't have a clear-cut opinion about a specific business at the current market price? Often, pride and, to some degree mental discomfort over the unknown, is the culprit.
為什么投資者不愿意承認(rèn)他們對(duì)于目前市場(chǎng)價(jià)格的某個(gè)特定投資產(chǎn)品并不十分清楚呢？通常是自尊心以及在某種程度上對(duì)未知的心理不適在作祟。

For more information on how to overcome these forces, read Rationality: The Investor’s Secret Weapon.
想要獲取更多關(guān)于如何克服這些阻力的信息，請(qǐng)閱讀《Rationality: The Investor’s Secret Weapon》。

?

Know Every Company (Or at Least, a Whole Lot of Them!)
了解每家公司（或至少大多數(shù)公司！）

Even if you don't have an opinion on the specific attractiveness of most stocks at any given moment, you should know as many businesses as you can across as many sectors and industries as you can.?
即使在特定時(shí)期你不懂大多數(shù)股票的特定優(yōu)勢(shì)，你也應(yīng)該盡可能多了解多個(gè)行業(yè)和產(chǎn)業(yè)的公司。

This means being familiar with things like return on equity and return on assets.?
這意味著你能熟悉股本回報(bào)率和資產(chǎn)回報(bào)率這樣的東西。

It means understanding why two businesses that appear similar on the surface can have very different underlying economic engines; what separates a good business from a great business.
也能理解為什么兩個(gè)產(chǎn)品表面上看起來差不多，卻有著截然不同的潛在經(jīng)濟(jì)引擎，這也是好的產(chǎn)品和優(yōu)秀產(chǎn)品的區(qū)別所在。

When asked what advice he would give a young investor trying to enter the business today, Warren Buffett said that he would systematically get to know as many businesses as he could because that bank of knowledge would serve as a tremendous asset and competitive advantage.
沃倫?巴菲特在被問及會(huì)給現(xiàn)在想進(jìn)入商界的年輕投資者什么建議時(shí)，曾說過他會(huì)系統(tǒng)地盡可能多了解一些投資產(chǎn)品，因?yàn)檫@一知識(shí)庫(kù)將成為巨大資產(chǎn)和競(jìng)爭(zhēng)優(yōu)勢(shì)。

For example, when something happened that you thought would increase the profits of copper companies, if you knew the industry ahead of time, including the relative position of the different firms, you'd be able to act much more quickly and with a much more complete understanding of the full picture, than if you had to become familiar with not only the industry but all of the players within it over a compressed period of time.?
比如有你覺得會(huì)提高銅礦企業(yè)利潤(rùn)的事情發(fā)生時(shí)，如果你提前了解了這一產(chǎn)業(yè)，包括不同企業(yè)的相對(duì)地位，就比你在有限時(shí)間內(nèi)要熟悉這一產(chǎn)業(yè)以及所有產(chǎn)業(yè)內(nèi)的公司能更快采取行動(dòng)，思慮得也更周全。

(Realize that there are no shortcuts for this step if your aim is mastery. When the host of the television show responded to Buffett, "But there are 24,000 publicly traded companies!" Warren responded, "Start with the A’s").
（你要明白，想要掌控全局就沒有捷徑可走。當(dāng)電視節(jié)目主持人反問巴菲特：“但上市公司有24,000家呢！”，巴菲特回答說：“從行業(yè)領(lǐng)先的開始了解吧?！保?/span>

?

（翻譯：菲菲）